Well that was fun, non? Stamkos and Crosby ending up tying for the Rocket Richard Trophy with 51 goals each.

The bright side of today's win over the Panthers was the empty net goal that Stamkos got for his 51st goal of the season. Going into today's game Stamkos already knew that Ovechkin had not scored against the Bruins. This allowed Stamkos to go up head to head against Crosby who sat 1 goal back at 49. Crosby scored two goals to bring up his total to 51, putting some pressure on the young Stamkos. And in the 3rd period, he was able to match Crosby with an empty net goal. With 51 goals each, that means they'll share the Rocket Richard Trophy and Ovechkin comes in 2nd. That's all sorts of awesome.

"Pretty surreal to do it in my second year in the league and share it with a player like Crosby is pretty special," Stamkos said. "And to win it without a guy named Ovechkin in the mix is pretty special too. He's such a dominant scorer."

And big kudos to Crosby for upping his level of game to go from being a playmaker to being a goal scorer. For anyone who says that there should be a tie breaker, just forget it. Maybe they can implement some rule in the future, but if you are allowed to get empty net goals, then they should be counted. It went in the net and it counted as a goal, non?

With the win today the Lightning dropped in the Draft lottery order down to 25th, which takes them out of the lotto for 1st draft pick. Nevertheless a top 10 draft pick will help the team in the future, and having Stamkos and Hedman in your future already, makes the future look promising.

Don't get me wrong, this season sucked. After last season, never did I think I would end up blogging another losing season of the Bolts but I did. If you look at the roster itself, the team should actually be a competitive team. Not winning the Stanley Cup competitive, but should not have been this bad. A combination of things attributed to their fall: poor coaching, management issues, defencemen going MIA, disappointing players etc. You can pick your reason, they all played a part in the Lightning finishing 25th.

Going Forwards

The ownership of the team needs to get rid of the dysfunctionality that has occurred on the management and coaching level of this team. I think that the Lightning needs to begin by just cleaning house: new GM and new coach

It does not matter if you think that Tocchet should get another year (I don't but I've heard people who feel that way), a new GM needs to bring in his 'guy' as a coach in order to bring some sense of stability to the organization. And all of this needs to happen before the draft which begins on June 25th in LA, so it should be an interesting few weeks ahead for the future of the Lightning.

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